Five people rounded up for encroaching a wetland

The office of the RDC Serere has embarked on operations in order to round up all the people who have paid a deaf ear to the management of wetlands.

Serere district that is surrounded by wetlands in the sub-counties of Kadungulu, Bugondo, Pingire, Labor, Kateta , Kyere and Atiira has been discovered to be having so many people who have deliberately decided to concentrate on agriculture in those areas.

In 2014, the office of the RDC Serere took trouble to map up all the wetlands and even demarcated boundaries in the presence of the local community in each area in order to avoid conflicts and to show people where they are supposed to end as they carry out agricultural activities.

Edward Onya Akonopesa the RDC Serere who was leading the team that demarcated the wetlands has again got shocked to hear that the very people who helped in mapping the boundaries are the ones spear heading the cultivation of these wetlands.

In one of the wetlands at Amese village, Abuket parish in Kyere sub-county-Serere district where suspects were rounded up, over 50 gardens have been ploughed in the middle of the wetland and crops like sorghum, simsim, sweet potatoes, rice, cotton, green grams are seriously growing however much the law is clear.

As a way of showing people that the law is very clear on wetlands, the office of the RDC Serere in collaboration with the police have now launched surprise operations in order to crack down the illegal use of wetlands in terms of agriculture.

Akonopesa notes that wetlands are places that the community can use to freely graze their domestic animals with all the comfort but not for carrying out agricultural activities as they have always done. So far, we have netted 5 but we still have a list of 19 people who are yet to be rounded up.

"The most painful issue is that the very people who have continued to cultivate in the wetland were those who attended all the sensitization meetings that were earlier conducted" Akonopesa added.

Meanwhile some of the people who are staying around the places where the wetlands are located point out that these areas have got very fertile land that highly favor crop production for both commercial and domestic purposes.

They now call upon the leadership of the district to give them an alternative because these wetlands have been a backbone to their socio-economic status.

However, Akonopesa has warned those who still feel that they cannot leave cultivating the wetlands to look for land elsewhere because whoever shall be got shall be dealt with as per the laws governing our country on wetlands.